It is of great interest (thanks to Val Kitchens for the thorough summary!)
that the CBBT had Sedge Wren but no sparrows on Monday. I checked the
northern two islands with Todd Day yesterday (Tuesday), after the evening
passage of the first real cold front, and found a good number of Seaside (8),
Nelson's Sharp-tailed (2-3), and Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed (7) Sparrows in
evidence, but no Sedge Wren or Marsh Wren. (Two House Wrens and one Winter
Wren were present, along with a Mourning Dove, sundry Common Yellowthroats, a
White-throated and two Swamp Sparrows, and no Great Cormorants!) Similar
numbers of the sparrows had been present on Sunday but not Saturday -- and
not Monday.
This strengthens the impressions of passerines' presence on the CBBT islands:
1) that they spend typically only one day on the island (unless ill or
impeded by weather) and depart the night following their arrival; 2) that
assumptions about individuals seen on consecutive days representing the "same
bird" are untoward. Todd and I saw two yellowthroats fly from the Bay into
the vegetation on the third island at about 0830, quite late in the morning;
this would appear to be part of the general reorientation of migrants that
was underway along the CBBT and around Sunset Beach, where birds caught over
the Bay or at its mouth turn around and move back northward. (Sunset Beach
had large numbers of flickers, phoebes, and Yellow-rumped and Palm Warblers,
a few sapsuckers, but nothing unusual yesterday morning.)
I do think that the CBBT islands offer the very best way to see both species
of sharp-tailed sparrow in the state, as they are regular here in October and
again mid-April through mid-May. If anyone has them, records of the
"Acadian" race of Nelson's (so different that this must surely constitute an
allospecies!) would be welcome here; I think I have only seen one at the
CBBT.
It's important to keep in mind that the passerines on these islands are often
tired, hungry, and dehydrated, and that it can be easy to flush them over the
perimeter wall to their deaths in the tunnels. It requires some familiarity
with the various species' flush distances and tolerances to avoid this, but
as a courtesy to the birds (and to other birders, who might wish to enjoy the
birding here after your visit) I think it's imperative that we allow these
birds some peace in their wait until nightfall and onward migration.
Bringing a bit of birdseed to scatter around in the vegetation surely will
help the granivores there. (Maybe in the future there will be a regular
water feature out there!) The high goldenrod and pokeweed out there would
normally have been cut over by the CBBT authority; it was the intercession of
Randy Moore with the Public Relations Director of the CBBT over four years
ago that restored the practice of letting the weeds grow up here. These do
provide shelter for birds, but the high goldenrod means that birding for
passerines is a bit more challenging; nevertheless, we should be mindful of
needs of the birds here as we seek them out.
Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA
In a message dated 10/8/02 10:35:20 PM, VBKitchens@xxxxxxx writes:
<<
VA Birders,
On Saturday afternoon, Oct. 5, while attending the VA Eastern Shore
Birding Festival, I saw 2 or 3 Eurasian Collared-Doves at the intersection of
Rts. 600 & 645. I went to the site from the Kiptopeke Hawkwatch, after
getting directions from Fenton Day there. As you leave Kiptopeke State Park,
Rt. 645 is the road that goes off slightly to the right to Rt. 13. After you
cross Rt. 13, it is just a block or two to the intersection with Rt. 600.
The last house on the right on Rt. 645 has a dense clump of trees, and as I
approached, a Collared-Dove on the wires across the street flew into this
clump. I then turned right onto Rt. 600, as Fenton had suggested, but I
didn't see any doves there, so I turned around and went back. Then I saw 2
of the Collared-Doves on wires at the intersection, so I had at least 2 and
possibly 3 birds at this spot. It was about 6:30 pm when I saw the
birds--just approaching dusk. Last year, I saw only one bird at another
location nearby, but I also saw it at dusk. I went by the Rt. 600/645
intersection an hour earlier (about 5:30 pm) the next day (Sunday), but I did
not find any Eurasian Collared-Doves in the area on that visit. I am
beginning to think that perhaps the best time of day to look for these birds
might be around dusk.
I stayed over at the Sunset Beach on Sunday night, and after checking out
Monday morning, I headed back down to the CBBT, hoping to find the
Sharp-tailed Sparrows (both species) which had been found there on Sunday
morning. (We found a Sedge Wren, but no sparrows, on Saturday morning.)
Alas, it was not to be. As I drove onto Island #4, a Peregrine was cruising
the island, no doubt looking for a songbird snack. Then I drove around to
the ocean side, and there, sitting on the tarmac, was an adult male Merlin.
On island #3, just after I got out of the car, another Merlin cruised by me
and all along the grassy strip; it was hardly a foot off the ground!
Meanwhile, Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks were flying around above me over
the islands, and they also appeared to be looking for a meal. The result was
that I didn't see one passerine on any of the islands on Monday morning. I
hope that they all left on Sunday evening. Otherwise, I'm afraid they all
became food for hungry hawks earlier that morning before I arrived on the
islands. For the record, I did check the vegetation carefully when the hawks
flew off, but I did not find any songbirds on Islands #4, 3, or 2 (I skipped
#1).
Other than hawks and gulls, and one Ruddy Turnstone on #2, the only birds
I saw on the islands were 3 Great Cormorants--2 which looked like they were
molting into adult plumage and 1 immature--on the slab on the bay side of
Island #4 (not on #3, where we had 2 Great Cormorants on Saturday morning).
Val Kitchens
Arlington, VA
You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send
email to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
----------------------- Headers --------------------------------
Return-Path: <va-bird-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Received: from rly-xf03.mx.aol.com (rly-xf03.mail.aol.com [172.20.105.227])
by air-xf02.mail.aol.com (v89.10) with ESMTP id MAILINXF21-1008223520; Tue,
08 Oct 2002 22:35:20 -0400
Received: from turing.freelists.org (freelists-180.iquest.net
[206.53.239.180]) by rly-xf03.mx.aol.com (v89.10) with ESMTP id
MAILRELAYINXF36-1008223457; Tue, 08 Oct 2002 22:34:57 2000
Received: from turing.(none) (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by turing.freelists.org (FreeLists Mail Multiplex) with ESMTP
id D670D951F4; Tue, 8 Oct 2002 21:35:23 -0500 (EST)
Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list va-bird); Tue, 08 Oct 2002 21:35:12
-0500 (EST)
Delivered-To: va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Received: from imo-m08.mx.aol.com (imo-m08.mx.aol.com [64.12.136.163])
by turing.freelists.org (FreeLists Mail Multiplex) with ESMTP id
D167395170
for <va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; Tue, 8 Oct 2002 21:35:10 -0500 (EST)
Received: from VBKitchens@xxxxxxx
by imo-m08.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v34.13.) id 3.b8.2ea3cc3e (4184)
for <va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; Tue, 8 Oct 2002 22:34:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: VBKitchens@xxxxxxx
Message-ID: <b8.2ea3cc3e.2ad4efb9@xxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 22:34:33 EDT
Subject: [va-bird] Birding Festival Notes, and CBBT Monday, Oct. 7
To: va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 124
X-archive-position: 2329
X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0
Sender: va-bird-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Errors-To: va-bird-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
X-original-sender: VBKitchens@xxxxxxx
Precedence: normal
Reply-To: VBKitchens@xxxxxxx
X-list: va-bird
